The Biggest Flop in Multi-media History: A Valuable Lesson on Generic Hero Shooter Games
By Yunkai Xu
Games Editor
If there is anything that sets the bar for historic flopping, it would be the 2024 game Concord. Concord, a first-person shooter game, was developed by Firewalk Studios and published by Sony Entertainment on August 23rd to be played on PC and PlayStation. This game, which had an estimated cost of between 50 million and 150 million, ended up costing 400 million USD. However, after eight years of costly development, the sales after launch only reached 25,000 copies, which forced Sony to shut it down after two weeks. So what went wrong with Concord? The answer is EVERYTHING!
From the very beginning, Concord was a pathetic attempt at recreating the success of Overwatch; Concord began its development in the same year that Overwatch was released. However, what determined Concord’s failure was that it took Firewalk EIGHT years to release it. The gaming market of 2024 is already oversaturated with the generic Hero shooter games. Gamers are simply tired of production companies’ constant making and remaking of the same type of game but with only a different background while still expecting more consumers to pay for their lack of creativity. If people wanted to play hero shooting, they would simply stick to the existing popular models such as Overwatch, Apex, and Valorant.
The inflation of video game prices is another factor that causes consumers to lose interest. Concord’s similar setting and gaming mode to the many free Hero shooter games on the market is not a convincing reason for players to spend $40$.
The most apparent cause of failure was the lack of publicity after Concord was announced. Most gamers were unaware of this game’s existence until it was first announced in 2023, seven years into its development. It almost appears that the publishers themselves have lost confidence in this game and want to maximize “damage control” by cutting down the publicity budget.
Lastly, immediately after the Concord trailer was released, the game received mass criticism from the “anti-woke crusaders”. People dislike the over-presence of the “woke culture” including the use of gender pronouns. Many gamers on Reddit and other social media indicated that they could not enjoy the gameplay when the political intentions are too “in-your-face”.
Others addressed concerns about characters’ appearances which demonizes stereotypes in the LGBTQ+ community. However, most internet citizens merely considered the character designs to be objectively unpleasant regardless of the effects of the woke culture. With the overwhelming negative feedback, the final question is rendered: would YOU be interested in Concord?